When I was thrilling


     When I was thrilling. I said No.

    But I was willing."

    Cole Porter, I think.

    There ought to be a law- in fact there probably  is -against  all those Virginian cases- charges from  rape or wearing a  black face cruelly to make fun of the victims of slavery.. Probably.

     To declare a bias I was a  half hearted guest at a college   Cake Walk . ,A long  way  from Virginia. The performers wore black face or chalky white .Over otherwise outlandish garb .And did various low level  athletics. With loud music. 

    Mostly I attempted to find my "date" who was otherwise occupied  . And when  that showed signs of being

    permanent, I left,. She may still be there.

    While I "enjoyed" the affair ,I mostly was interested in the professionalism (varied) of the performers .In my self centered adolescence I didn't think that even indirectly it could be seen asa way of implying  that the horrors of slavery were exaggerated .Even today I would only go so far as to agree if someone else made the suggestion rather than it occur to me spontaneously. 

    Back to crime and punishment.

    Is it a crime to say -No when you were willing? It makes it harder for the next one?

     Should it be one for someone to sit at a desk  in Ft Lauderdale flogging  sub prime mortgages in 2007?  Or shouting at the opposing l cheer leaders last week.  Obviously not !But clearly crimes should be punished and things that should be crimes and aren't should made  ones.

    But if something hasn't been made to be one. Then the accused  party   should show up at the desk Monday and  get on with things.

    If someone has done the crime of course they should do the time.   Some  court, or DA, or private petitioner should start the process. We know how to do it.  Meanwhile everyone else should go back to their offices and do  whatever they should do there and life should continue . Some of us voted for them to do that.

    But if there is no  case for the prosecution  pass a law. To apply in the future. Not  ex post facto  waiving  the statue of limitations. ( Does that mean that it was wrong for Israel to  capture and prosecute Adolph Eichman . 

    Two statements.The Israelis were not"wrong" . But  Argentina should have stopped them. They were illegal. )

    This will certainly means that  lots of aggrieved parties will  remain aggrieved  because there isn’t an existing law. Means some crimes won’t be punished . Maybe lots.

    But  also that the state of Virginia will reopen tomorrow . That’s a good thing. When we reach the point that sensible participants here are debating whether  the three top Virginian Government officials should somehow abandon their offices, we need to do something else. So that we can all continue to live in a country that works. Trash is collected , Doctors perform operations,and smart phones can only be manufactured by companies who have that right.

    I began provocatively of course, 

    A woman, anyone, who is forced to have sex should have recompense. In court. .Legally.

     

    Comments

    I don’t mind being an outlier on the blackface issue. If you have baggage, you should make voters aware. If yo don’t, you can expect backlash. He stayed silent after the Charlottesville horror. Giving him a pass on this will mean that when a Republican commits an offense and we complain, we will be viewed as hypocrites. Fairfax is great fun ton Northam because now people will say that he needs an investigation into allegations from years ago to be removed from office. Unless there is Bill Cosby style evidence, Fairfax may survive.

    Northam is all about saving his reputation. He wants us to know that he is not a racist. He just left Justin Fairfax off campaign literature by mistake. He changed his story. He read “Roots”. He forgot to update his information on the events of 1619. The Republicans are claiming they just ran over him on a tax bill. I don’t see anything to cheer about.

    Edit to add

    Here is Charles.Blow

    https://mobile.twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/1094935757125496832?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

    I do a lot of public speaking. I often have to encourage young disenchanted black voters to vote. They are disgusted by the whole system. I say vote BECAUSE you’re disgusted. But with things like Northam, I understand their disgust. Even your liberal “friends” are problematic.


    We are dancing around the fact that we can do better 


    As always I find your position rational.

    I place more emphasis on trying to  ensure the system works. 

    At one time reformers had some nostalgia for the bad old days

    of city bosses , probably correctly maligned but they sent

    you a turkey at thanksgiving.

    A daughter assures me that we're relatively closely related to

    Big Tim Sullivan who used to send  the turkeys in the 19th century.

    Maybe it's in my blood.

     

     


    Clueless, colorblind, integrated schools and racist "conditioning", Northram on Virginia's eastern shore. NYT

    As a senior, Mr. Northam was one of two white players on the 1977 Onancock High School basketball team, seen in team photographs in the school yearbook..... In a region where black and white people largely lived in different communities, Ralph Northam hung around black neighborhoods with black friends. He was one of two white players on the high school basketball team in 1977, his senior year. His class had 73 students — 37 black, 36 white.

    “We didn’t see race,” said Robert Garris Jr., a friend of Mr. Northam from childhood, recalling youthful days filled with sports, fishing and crabbing. He stood at the entrance to the former Onancock High School, which both men attended.,,

    .. David and Cathy Riopel, pediatricians at the Franktown Community Health Center who are white, recalled how, for a decade beginning in the mid-1990s, Mr. Northam commuted 60 miles each way to treat the children at the center, including many from African-American, Latino or Haitian families who worked on the region’s farms or in its chicken processing plants...

     


    And plenty of angry Dems from outside Virginia wanted to chase the person described here out of their party based on one incident. Precisely because he could not remember it well enough to make the right excuses and apologies, he wasn't traumatized enough about the error of his ways in his youth.For chrissakes, read here about his high school years! He lived a more integrated life than many northerners. That's the way I see it. Just that simple. And then they wonder why most of south votes red.

    The absurdity strikes hard. Inclusiveness my ass, not for southern white pipple, for them there's litmus tests now to get in. Way to grow a party: intolerance, we don't want you if you participated in a blackface party in your youth.

    Does anyone think that Bill Clinton growing up in Arkansas or Jimmy Carter in Georgia protested in outrage when they saw "cracker" acquaintances doing blackface and turned their back on them? That's not how they got where they got.

    I fear a loss for liberals in 2020. Let the culture change the culture, not politics.It has shown it does it best anyways. Politics need to be about coalitions against Trumpism right now, including white southerners and even people in the north who once attended a blackface party. And even Eddie Murphy, you need to want him to vote Dem too.


    Why do I fear a loss? Because Republican operatives have been shown the way with this. Prod the intolerant into intolerance by digging for dirt in every Dem candidate's past. Make them look like they want a small pure party that punishes people for being politically incorrect. And even for those who are politically correct: they stay home because the candidate has been shown to be impure and the other is worse. Hard to find enough saints to fill all the positions where everyone agrees they are a saint.


    Driftglass on where extreme pursuit of purity can go:

    Once purity itself becomes all you care about -- once  it becomes a distillery race to see who can get to 100% -- the chicken farmers are never far behind:

    The main Islamist group in Algeria, the GIA, ended up being led by a Mr. Zouabri, a chicken farmer, who killed everyone who disagreed with him. He issued a final communiqué, declaring that the whole of Algerian society should be killed, with the exception of his tiny remaining band of Islamists. They were the only ones who understood the truth.

    Blackface is not a litmus test. That is why people are shocked. If blackface is a litmus test, it does reflect poorly on white Southerners. 

    I think when people see their tax returns and the Mueller investigation continues, Trump will lose. If criticizing blackface leads to a vote for Trump, the country is already lost.


    You want to make it just about blackface. By far the vast majority of people think blackface is wrong. Others see it as a question of when forgiveness is appropriate. Is one incident 35 years ago weighed against a life time of good public service that includes working for the rights of minorities, an admission of guilt and an apology sufficient for forgiveness. Many, including 58% of Virginian African Americans, seem to think it is.


    Yes, 58% of black polled by the WaPo support Northam staying in office, I think national Democrats see the issue playing differently across the country. Note the rapid pushback to Northam’s indentured servant comment on CBS. Nationally, Northam is going to be used as the double standard whine used as a diversion when a Republican commits a racist act. Steve King says something, he will point to Northam still being in office. The other concern is the impact that Northam will have on turnout in the November elections in Virginia. If the race is about Trump, Democrats should win. If it is about Northam, I’m not so sure. He could have black support, but not black turnout.

    I also note that Northam staying in office makes it easier for Fairfax to ride things out. The Virginia Black Caucus now wants an investigation, not a resignation.


    Note hundreds of thousands of votes disappeared in Georgia (about to roll of the News of the Day) - seems folks much more interested in what college students did 35 years ago. Craaazy.

    PS - does Ilhan Omar need to resign, or will an apology be enough? Asking for a friend...

    https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5c61d1afe4b028d54316b7be


    Georgia story broke Friday-Saturday. Coalition for Good Government trying to force investigation. No updates that I have seen.

    Given the Northam standard, an apology will be required.

     

    Edit to add:

    Omar apologized 

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/rep-ilhan-omar-i-unequivocally-apologize-for-tweets-on-israel?ref=home

    Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “unequivocally” apologized in a Monday statement for a series of tweets on Israel that Democratic leaders have condemned for containing anti-Semitic tropes. “Anti-Semitism is real and I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes,” she said. “My intention is never to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.


    Wait, so an apology is good enough? No resignation required? How come?


    But you totally ridiculed Northam for saying he was being educated about how things like blackface were especially hurtful. She said the same thing he did, she's being educated about it. Either you tolerate a claim of ignorance along with apology or you don't.

    Edit to add theres one big difference here: her supposedly hurtful activities were recent and in official capacity, his were not.


    Omar has made other offensive statements. Since Northam is remaining in place, it would be hard to remove Omar from committee assignments.


    Sounds very relativistic. Guess we've abandoned any hard principles if there ever were any.


    Your Omar link precisely on target. See what I just wrote in reply to NCD's Rolling Stone link of the Rush to Judgment crowd. All the major national Dem leaders calling on him to resign, including Pelosi. Butting into Virginia's business. While Omar is directly under Pelosi's purview, but Pelosi not asking her to resign. Would that not look like throwing the proudly-a-Jew tribe under the bus but giving preference for the proudly-African-American tribe, at least to most common folks? This is why entering into culture warring is just dumb in general when you are a politician trying to forge a majority coalition. Or you could spend all day every day giving equal time to policing every grievance.


    The political (as opposed to moral) problem of Omar's statement well stated here, I think:

    No surprise to me that I ran across the tweet because it was "liked" by Charlie Sykes, who I imagine probably recognized in the quote something he used to do on his Rushwannabe conservative talk radio show out of Wisconsin before he converted to NeverTrumpism.laugh


    The point is not the one incident of Northum and blackface. The point is that the GOP is going to try to dig up politically incorrect things on all the Dem candidates and hope that there is significant enough outrage instigated by people like you on the net to make it go viral over and over and over. Till they've branded the Dems the ridiculous purist preacher party that eats it's own.

    Also you really should stop presuming a given that Trump is going to be their presidential candidate. You should be so lucky.

    For example: Nikki Haley could handle southern suburban women who are sympathetic to #MeToo concerns quite well, I would think.


    I’ve voted for more Democratic candidates than you ever will.


    The general trick is getting more than one person to vote for them, no?

    Edit to add: I will fully admit that anyone you advocate as a good candidate, I would tend to question whether I wanted to vote for that person. It's nothing more than the way you communicate, and I'd try not to be prejudiced. But I do wonder if others would feel the same way. The trick really is to convince a majority and win elections, no matter what party they say they are. Not just to have a political party that doesn't win anything. We have the judiciary branch of government to protect minority interests. It's the way the whole thing is suppose to work.


    In spite of me, Democrats won seats. You’re not a Democrat, as you repeatedly make clear.


    I think a litmus test is to refuse to vote for someone was was a prosecutor like Harris or Klobuchar.


    Oh, another litmus test - how quaint.


    Silly me, I was under the impression being a "pro law and order" politician was traditionally a feature and not a bug as to the majority.

    I've got to admit that things are getting a little mixed up on that front lately, though. We now have a world where like, a Jared Kusher, is anti-tough-prosecutor and lefties love them some Fed prosecutors, especially SDNY.


    The point was that a former prosecutor should not be ruled out


    Good points. The list of the "rush to judgment" crowd

    In the complex, racist "conditioned" (from article) and inscrutable relations of locals, indecipherable to east Virginia shore outsiders, he may have been cluelessly satirizing white racist practices, playing the fool. Which he perhaps felt it would be futile to try to explain.  

    Wiser than many, Obama was silent on the whole controversy.


    Yeah, the link, that really shows what surprised me the most, seemed very stupid. There was no requirement that most of those people say anything, only the ones from Virginia. The rest, it was actually none of their business, was the business of the people of Virginia. If forced to comment, it would have been far better to say "I am for letting the people of Virginia decide." It's almost like they wanted to make it clear that the national party was all about making litmus tests about politically correct issues (and that those standards will apply to your activities since the day you were born) and the national party is now for culture warring and the wars will apply down to state level. (They come for the governor's yearbook photos today, yours may be tomorrow. And before ya know it, it's East Germany allover again. cheeky What the hell good is using the term "diversity" if it doesn't appreciate that different states have different cultures and not looking like the feds are always going to be butting in to everything a state does?)

    I am actually the most disappointed with those non-Virginians in power that commented. They should be our stop on viral social media mob movements of all kinds, not feeding them. Not that local journalism picked up on it, they should have, it was a valid concern about a just elected governor even if it came from an enemy outlet.


    Agree. The "running for President" pile on mob:

    In addition to Harris, four others vying for the party nomination demanded Friday the Democratic governor’s resignation: Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey, and former Housing Secretary Julian Castro of Texas.

    “These racist images are deeply disturbing,” Warren said. “Hatred and discrimination have no place in our country and must not be tolerated, especially from our leaders......


    Did you see his press conference?

    If Democrats remained silent, they would have been considered complicit.


    No. Eastern shore folks can be,  it seems ....a special breed of Virginians..... he had to have some talent, as one of only 2 whites, to make that HS bb team, speech givin' not being needed.


    The country views him from the changing story, the admission of blackface, and his refusal to step down. The national party had to speak out. 

    Edit to add:

    Here is Don Lemon’s response to Northam’s BCS interview

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don-lemon-ralph-northam_us_5c625c97e4b028d543175bcb

    CNN’s Don Lemon was momentarily at a loss for words after watching an interview in which embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) said he hadn’t been fully aware of his white privilege or why wearing blackface was problematic


    We're neither pure ,nor wise , nor good

    we'll do the best we know

    Candi 

     

    Ralph N


    That does not address the political reality. Northam and Virginia will be weaponized against Democrats. No one forced Northam to wear blackface or to change his story. It looks like all three leaders will remain in office. The hope for Democrats is that Trump looms large over the election.


    the City Council 

    "is controlled by the homosexual community"

    Ruben Diaz Sr

     

    So ?


    Even his son, a Borough President condemned the statement. The city council speaker asked for an apology. He didn’t get one. Now the Speaker asks for a resignation 

    https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/politics/2019/02/12/corey-johnson-n...

    Is your solution to just stay silent because homophobes are going to be offended?


    Who was the last (or only) person to apologize for saying "cracker"?


    NCD, If you didn't check out "Big League Politics" which broke the story on the yearbook, I just did and think you might get something out of it as regards rightie agitprop, as I know you to be something of an afficianado . Here is the site, and here is their twitter feed.

    First thing that struck me overall is that they are clearly major Trump fans--more so than Breitbart--where the founder and writer of most (all?) stories had worked- more like a mouthpiece for Trump, writing something waxing positive on nearly everything Trump says and does. To the point of spinning wild on anyone in the Trump admin, such as WATCH Matthew Whitaker’s BALLER Smackdown of Democrat Jerry Nadler.,Saw only one foreign policy topic: anti-Iran. Maybe more pro-gun rights than Trump, the only difference

    But THEN what really sticks out is that they are just thrilled with their new blackface outrage toy! They are publishing stories on anything they can find or imagine, such as  Whoopi STILL Absent From ‘The View’ Since Behar Blackface Photo Re-Emerged Where is Whoopi? and SOUL MAN: Highlights From Ralph Northam’s PR Campaign To Pretend He Is Not Racist Anymore and Democrat Rep. Beyer: AG Herring Should Get a Pass for Racism Because Republicans Bad Democrats don’t care about racism. They care about power.

    Then I noticed indications of them hopping on that anti-anti-semitism train in Ibraheem Samirah Erases Endorsement From Fellow Virginia Democrat Amid Anti-Semitism Scandal and UPDATE: VA Democrat’s Post Declaring Israel WORSE Than The KKK Still LIVE The anti-Semitic posts remain on the candidate’s social media.


    Yeah, found that out near day one of this Northam thing. NPR interviewed the guy from the website,  in a very aggressive way for NPR, asking why the site support avowed white supremacist Steve King but want clueless Northam to resign.


    Here we go, a wannabe-just-like-Big League Politics. Probably not going to cut it, not enough rile-em-up outrage factor here:

    Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib wrote a column for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan's blog in 2006

    @ BusinessInsider.com, 18 hr. ago

    [...] First unearthed by conservative blogger Jeryl Bier, Tlaib penned a column titled "Bills must stop deportations for minor offenses," which takes issue with deportations for minor offenses [....]


    Nothing matters anymore. Fairfax = Kavanaugh. Omar/Tlaib. = Steve King. 

    One of the “Good people on both sides” that Trump praised is accused of shooting a black man in Baltimore.

    More than a year after a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, its cheerleaders are still being arrested for alleged racist attacks.

    Brandon Higgs, 24, was arrested in December after he allegedly hurled racist slurs at construction workers in suburban Baltimore and shot one. Four new hate crime charges were added to his case last week. Higgs had a long history with hate, chat logs from 2017 reveal. Those chats, where he talked of murdering black and Jewish people, reveal his connection to a network of other prominent racists, several of whom have been charged or convicted in violent attacks since the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/alt-right-charlottesville-marcher-brandon-higgs-accused-of-trying-to-kill-black-men?ref=home

    As I noted, Farrakhan is happy. Tlaib may not need to apologize for anything.


    Here are the words of Robert Jeffress, the man who delivered te prayer at the embassy opening in Jerusalem 

     

    Jeffress: ‘You can’t be saved being a Jew’

    Mr. Jeffress, who leads one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the country, suggested in a 2010 interview with the Trinity Broadcasting Network that some churches might shy away from saying “anything that’s going to offend people” to try to grow their congregations. He made it clear he was going to preach what he believes the Bible says.

    “Islam is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell,” Mr. Jeffress said in the interview. “Mormonism is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell.”

    He added: “Judaism — you can’t be saved being a Jew. You know who said that, by the way? The three greatest Jews in the New Testament: Peter, Paul and Jesus Christ. They all said Judaism won’t do it. It’s faith in Jesus Christ.”

    In the past decade, Mr. Jeffress has assumed a prominent role in conservative politics, appearing frequently on Fox News and urging in sermons and on television to elect a Christian as president. Non-Christian religions are sending their followers to hell, he preached in a September 2008 sermon.

    “Not only do religions like Mormonism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism — not only do they lead people away from the true God, they lead people to an eternity of separation from God in hell,” Mr. Jeffress said. “Hell is going to be filled with good religious people who have rejected the truth of Christ.”

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/world/middleeast/robert-jeffress-embassy-jerusalem-us.html

     

    I now think Omar and Tlaib are going to be okay.


    Trump’s call for Omar to resign can be dismissed since he has a history of making anti-Semitic comments 

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-ilhan-omar-anti-semitism-hypocrisy_us_5c63358de4b08da0ec7fbfd1

    Whenever a Democratic politician is attacked, the response will now be to counter with what a Republican did. Hopefully we’ll get back to normal after Trump is out of office.


    These are people who believe God dumped enough water to cover 200 million square miles of earth 2 extra miles high (i.e. 400 million cubic miles). Like I'd get as much verifiable information from the drunk with Tourette's who staggers down my street.


    From the Holocaust to Israel, 1948, to the Trump embassy move, it's all God's plan in the scriptures to rapture the southern Baptists. 

    It's all about them! Who woulda thought that?

    Hagee and the cult are nuts enough they could have stood shifts as SS with machine guns and vicious dogs drove Jewish and other untermenshen families into gas chambers, saying it's OK, just God's plan. Necessary for Hagee and the cult to rapture into Baptist heaven. 


    Decades ago when I first discovered the alliance between right wing Christian rapturists and Israel, I got the ironic kick and all and loved to inform all and sundry about the hypocrisy, et. al. But that has grown tiresome for me, as I feel as those who don't know that by now are going to be forever clueless. Not to mention the rapturists are dying out, not growing, and right wing Christians attitudes towards Israel becoming more mish moshey.

    Instead I am starting to look at this example more big picture, a picture that happens to be related to the topic of this thread. Whether you think the result is good or bad, look at how Israel continues to survive: by not being that ideologically picky about their allies. Allies only have to agree on a few very important things. Only a very few select litmus tests, the rest doesn't matter as long as they "win" with that help not big on moral judgments.. As long as you don't want to wipe them off the earth at the moment, you are a potential ally. It is an approach that continues to be very interesting as a political technique in general.


    Hannity and Fox viewers think Hitler was a lefty liberal, and FDR and Democrats are lefty Nazis like Hitler. 

    Some cognitive dissonance is obviously necessary to believe that, for clear historical reasons, and the short documentary strains that "doublethink" trick even more. Ergo: not Fox appropriate!!

    Thanks for the link.


    He's just loving it, sees the potential for success of branding the Dem party as a bunch of angry jihadis eating their own:


    Trump says this as he is in the safe city of El Paso telling us the country is in jeopardy.


    Trump tonight in El Paso on Northam:

     


    Today, Northam said that he was told to use indentured servants by a historian. This is a rational explanation for what he said on “CBS This Morning”. Finally.

    Northam, in a statement Monday, noted that a historian had told him the use of “indentured” to describe the arrival of the first Africans to Virginia was more “historically accurate.”

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ralph-northam-indentured-servants_us_5c61151ae4b0f9e1b17f0417

    Virginia is a purple state their was no way that national candidates were not going to address his bizarre press conference. He was in the photo, then he wasn’t in the photo, then he moonwalked in blackface.. Even tan shoe polish would have been a stretch, but black shoe polish? The weekend was not going to pass without comme. Who created the dumpster fire? Northam.


    A company I know of, that  should have known better assigned an image consultant with the plumb opportunity to select one (an image) for us.

    "Trail blazer"  was one of his first suggested "image".

    The  final choice was

    "doughty competitor."

    Well. I suppose so. It could have been worse.  

    It crossed my mind that dagblog  should consider  suggesting some form of words to be automatically inserted when you want to nicely suggest that you deeply and fully reject some suggestion of ,say, mine.

    The Brits have the useful approach  of  preceding  a rejection with something like

    "With truly deep admiration"

      followed by what they truly think.

    Something like that might work here. Could it?


    Hmmm, that's a little sparse. How about:

    With truly deep admiration for someone with the perseverance and tenacity to go an entire life without ever once thinking or reading or even learning anything at all.



    Here is the scorecard

    Florida Republican Secretary of State resigns after blackface photos exposed

    Northam remains in office

     

    Kavanaugh asked to remove himself rom consideration 

    Fairfax remains in office, calls for resignation slow down

     

    Steve Kingstays In office

    Omar stays in office


    Al Franken gone with the wind.

    Trump luches on.


    The Republicans are going to have a field day with the crap going on in Virginia. It is a national story. Virginia will make it harder to call out racism when it is done by Conservatives. That remains true despite the Franken debacle. Kavanaugh lurches on as well.


    Flav, see the Times on the Ruben Diaz Sr. story, you'll get it; my underlining:

    [....]  in 2011, Mr. Diaz held a rally to oppose same-sex marriage while his gay granddaughter held a counter rally across the street [....]

     Mr. Díaz, a Bronx Democrat now on the City Council, said last week in a Spanish-language radio interview that his colleagues first shunned him because the Council was “controlled by the homosexual community.”Robert Feldman, Mr. Díaz’s personal lawyer since the 1980s, said that his client is not homophobic [.....]

    “He’s a very religious Pentecostal minister. That’s his faith,” said Mr. Feldman, who is gay and married.

    Mr. Feldman noted that Mr. Díaz has two brothers who are gay, and that he believes that Mr. Díaz is able to compartmentalize his faith and his personal interactions with gay people.

    “He sees us as powerful and competent,” Mr. Feldman said.

    In the interview at his district office, Mr. Díaz did refer to the power of the gay and lesbian community, but in a less complimentary way.

    “The L.G.B.T. community demands that Reverend Díaz resigns!” he said. “Look at how they start demanding and everybody starts roaring. Even my friends are abandoning me. I wish I could have that power, but I don’t.”

    He said that his stances against abortion and same-sex marriage have “created an antagonism toward me.”

    “My freedom of religion is being taken away,” he said. “So when they talk about tolerance, what exactly are they talking about?” [....]

    The LBGT "community" IS pretty powerful in NYC, I would definitely say more so than any Pentecostal "community." (Seems to me the latter is centered in the Bronx, a Caribbean immigrant population.) This is like the opposite of prejudice, this is tribal squabbling about victimology, Victim Olympics stuff. Almost made me laugh, i.e., Us poor poor conservative religious people in NYC, we get no R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The "homosexuals" treat us like dirt.


    P.S. I just looked it up, because like most New Yorkers, I don't pay much attention to what the City Council is up to, they don't seem to do much at all. The current Speaker of the Council is proudly gay and also happens to represent a Manhattan district that is like LBGT central.

    Edit to add: I found that the City Council has special interest Caucuses!!!  Imagine that, gosh. The Speaker belongs to 3 of them:Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender; Irish; Progressive. Ruben Diaz only belongs to one: Black, Latino/a, and Asian.

    I am wondering what the Irish caucus promotes these days....wink


      Cool - any orgs for white straight people who aren't Irish?


      Well, personally, to be honest with you, as a property tax payer, I feel that they have may have a bit too many orgs over there and could do with some trimming, and that maybe they didn't really need such a fancy website.....

      More seriously, it only got interesting and I kept looking a bit more into it after reading the Times article, because it started to strike me that Diaz, he represents a sort of version of populist outlook, of the conservative Latinos, and he is showing anger at Manhattan/Brooklyn hipster elites here. That's what's going on. (And he probably thinks his gay kids and grandkid are disrespectful sinners gone over to the dark side, but you still love the sinner.)

      There is a big Pentecostal church a few blocks from me (in the NW Bronx.) I checked it out once because it moved into a big former billiard hall that was empty, and the signs were intriguing and I was curious.  It is a good-sized Caribbean immigrant flock, seemed like mostly Dominicans and some Haitians, and it was very clear that the preacher teaches "prosperity gospel".

      There are more sides to this populist anger than just Trumpism.


      MHO as a lifelong student of cultural history, this is an example of how our culture and other cultures actually end up changing:

      After last year's terrible Grammys that minimized women and nonwhite artists, the Recording Academy tried something else: the opposite. https://t.co/PRB1rm7fC1 pic.twitter.com/DUGJR9VcfA

      — New York Times Arts (@nytimesarts) February 12, 2019

      Not forcing it by politics nor law, as those merely reflect what it is at the current time. And attempts to change by politics or law too often provoke counter productive reactions.  Smart conservatives who don't want things to change know this, that's why they've always railed against "Hollywood" and protest things in the arts, humanities and entertainment that try to stretch cultural boundaries.


      And that is also why "cultural appropriation" throughout history has been an important positive thing. And why freedom of speech is of prime importance.


      Have you seen the responses to the Motown tribute at this year’s Grammy’s?

      I didn’t watch the broadcast but read articles on the reaction.


      yes, I too saw that it was generally agreed that they royally screwed up that one. Kinda a slap in the face of honoree Diana Ross, to be sure

       All said and done, though, while our pop culture is not always rocket scientist level, it's been  pretty damn successful changing the world culture since the end of WWII, or even before. Comes to mind it's been so successful some conspiracists like to blame certain small tribes in "Hollywood" with plots for world domination, famous congressmen try to purge it of "commies", dictators and totalitarians of all kinds try to ban and/or censor it, etc.


      Should we  "silence" Ruben Diaz? No.

      Ironically that would seem to him  as proof of what he already believes: that gays control the information channels and use that to "silence" people like him.

      So rmr  asks "should we do nothing". Sensible question. 

      Well, yes.

      For all I know Diaz is a great human being who does good things ( may or may not be true, it's a useful starting assumption)  but has personal religious beliefs that  leads him  to this  belief  some other person -or group-in this case, gays,  - are evil. Sigh.. 

      And  that they  have too much power .-if only!- and  use it to prevent  people like him, from talking about this.

      The solution is not trying  to prevent straights like him from talking about this . If you follow me.

      I could try to suggest alternatives but I'd rather talk about Bill.

      In the psych department at a  famous university. A behaviorist.  Lived next door and would occasionally lapse into jargon about positive reinforcement. 

       Unfortunately I met Jim an  army friend  and invited him for dinner - provided by my flat mate, BTW a gay. The discussion : a current political menace. Jim was a supporter. In spades. Bill detested the CPM and spent  dinner pointing out that not only was the  political menace  a horrible person and so was anyone who supported him. 

      Never saw Jim again.

      Afterwards when I asked Bill whether that was an example of "positive reinforcement". He said

      But first you have to catch their attention


      Díaz Sr. obviously has no problem discussing his homophobia in public. People who support Díaz Sr. are able to respond via social media. That seems to be a more likely way that discussion will occur compared to town halls, etc.

      You can be a white supremacist like Steve King. The question is whether a white supremacist should be allowed to govern. King won but I applaud the direct confrontation via the ballot box. Hopefully, the same challenge will happen when Díaz Sr. comes up for re-election, since his resignation is doubtful.

      I don’t think conversion therapy is going to be effective for Steve King or Díaz. 

      An offshoot of this issue will come up in the Democratic primaries. Do Democrats want a fighter to oppose Trump or a candidate who runs on being a uniter?


      Companies with a lot of debt have a lot of banks and typically  at least once a year you invite them all

      to a dog and pony show. Food&drink plus Q&A with the CEO.Maybe 40/50 guests.It makes sense.

      Every get's news amd get's the same news.

      As opposed to  2008's sub prime fiasco. 

      A company for whom I worked had a talented Asst Treasurer: Ken.  Harvard and the Business School.Had written a text book which seemed to sell. He'd be part of these events hosting a table of 8 to 10.

      A friend remarked "when I  hear a voice saying "Where you are completely wrong......." I knew Ken was attending.".

      We don't want someone who's too quick at telling people where they are completely   wrong.

       



      I was just reminded here how self-deprecation of tribe can be a wonderfully effective political tool in the face of prejudice:

      Sorry. I had to block this other guy who mistook this wildly self-loathing and self-deprecating tweet as continued proof of Jews claiming superiority. Not sure which Jew he was talking to?! But he was sick of all us and our....confidence??

      — Bryan Behar (@bryanbehar) February 13, 2019

      Related message from the elite tribe of paperback book buyers I just noticed.

      The initial tweet here is unrelated, it's the author of a book crowing that it has just risen to #3 on the NYTimes bestseller list in its first week (and rightly so, as she appears to be one of the victims of the still nearly medieval voodoo that is called "modern" psychiatry, exposing the same.)

      But from looking at her snapshot of the newly published list for Feb. 24 print New York Times, I noticed that # 2 on the list is 

      White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon Press) Historical and cultural analysis on what causes defensive moves by white people and how this inhibits cross-racial dialogue.

      and that this paperback has been on their best seller list for 31 weeks now.



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